Sternschnuppin' into Fall

Can you believe it? This Saturday is Fall!! I think I’m ready for sweater and hot cider weather after all the heat of early September. I want to go apple picking and bring home a bushel of apples (cider doughnuts). I want to exclaim at how beautiful the leaves are this year, and smugly look at the tourists who come to OUR part of the country to exclaim with us. But what I am looking forward to most is that we are back in prime cheese weather. One of my favorite parts of fall is sitting on the porch, wrapped in a blanket sipping tea and eating cheese and cheese and more cheese. One must be sure to fatten up for the cold times ahead, after all!

If I were to pick one cheese that represents this season to me, I’d choose the alpine cow’s milk cheese, Sternschnuppe. Besides having a name I love saying, this cheese tastes of warm spices, like curry, nutmeg and turmeric, and walnuts, making apples and Sternschnuppe very good friends. They support each other’s flavors while also making them better. The burst of bright, crisp, sweet apple and the richness of the cheese make them an excellent pairing, besties for life!

Cheesemaker Evelyn Wild was hired by the dairy cooperative Käsküche Isny in Bavaria, Germany during the late 90’s to transform their high quality milk into delicious cheese. She was one of the few well-known female cheesemakers in Germany, creating Sternschnuppe, Adelegger (another shop favorite), and six more tasty cheeses. Unfortunately for the cheese world, Evelyn retired in January after almost 20 years with the coop, so the Sternschnuppe wheels we have now are the last ones we’ll ever have.

Thus this Fall, as long as it lasts, I want to savor Sternschnuppe, hopefully with apples, maybe even on the porch cozied up in a blanket. I will raise my mug of tea to the badass cheesemaker Evelyn, to her wonderful cheese, and to this beautiful season.